Pain
by JennyGranger
Summary: Day 3 of Zutara Week.


This is my favorite that I've done so far. I own nothing.

Pain

"How exactly did this happen again?" Katara asked, as her husband was presented in front of her, unable to bear weight on his left foot. She would have first gone ahead and healed him, if it weren't for the guilty looks on him and the Airbender that was helping him keep upright.

"Well…" Aang started.

"It was a…" Zuko said, "…training exercise?"

However, the Fire Lady simply crossed her arms and glared at the pair. After only a moment, though, she sighed, and lowered her arms back down to her side.

"You're a horrible liar, Zuko. Both of you are," Katara said, making some odd movements with her hands, "Well, what are you waiting for? Sit down."

"Augh!" Zuko cried out as a stream of water caught him around his good leg and knocked both him and Aang to the ground. Katara only smirked and knelt down next to Zuko's foot. The ankle was swollen and bruised.

"It's sprained," she said, "badly." Her eyes left the offending appendage and traveled up to his eyes, "Are you sure it was just a training accident?"

"Uh…" he said, not quite being able to hold his wife's gaze, "It was… uh…. I kind of… felloutofatree."

"Excuse me. You did _what_?"

"Fell out of a tree?" he said, looking up at her with his best puppy-eyes.

"And why were you in the tree?"

"I was… um…." He glanced over at his cohort, "Aang?"

The airbender looked up as though he suddenly remembered something. Immediately, he began to dig around in his shirt. After a few seconds, he produced a large flower the exact shade of Katara's eyes, which grew wide as she saw it.

"It's a Peacock Blossom," Zuko explained, extracting the flower gently from Aang's hand, "The shade of blue it produces depends on the height it grows at. We just happen to have a tree the on the grounds that produces flowers of this particular shade, but only three quarters of the way up the tree," he finished, placing the blossom in her hair, so it rested right behind her ear.

"Oh, Zuko," Katara said, gently running her finger along the petals' soft edges, "It's beautiful. But why could you just tell me?"

"I wanted it to be a surprise," he said, a light blush working its way onto his cheeks, "I was going to meet you in the bedroom tonight with it. Since tonight's the full moon and all."

Katara smiled even wider, but Zuko caught the playfulness in her eyes. A full moon always made her sex drive skyrocket and they had a very wild night once a month as a result. Right now, however, she merely wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his, succeeding in knocking both of them the rest of the way to the stone floor below.

"Ow!" Zuko exclaimed as pain shooting through his leg reminded both of them why this situation happened in the first place. Katara giggled and placed another kiss on his cheek before sitting up and re-examining his ankle.

"I'm not going to be able to heal it all in one go, but I will be able to take most of the edge off," she said, bringing a bit of water over to them, "Unfortunately," she added, positioning the water around the bruising, "this is going to hurt."

She waited until he nodded before beginning the healing procedure, trying to ignore his grimace. After only a few minutes, she was done though, and he was able to relax. Especially when she bent down and placed a soft kiss on the still-slightly sore area. Afterwards, she crawled on top of him and placed her lips back on his, not caring that they were still lying on the cold stone floor.

"I love you," Zuko said softly, running his fingers through her hair, being careful not to dislodge the flower.

"I love you, too," she answered before suddenly looking around, "Where'd Aang go?"

Zuko also looked around before answering, "He probably left to give us some private time."

Katara smiled, and Zuko could most definitely see it was not an innocent look in her eyes, "Good," she said, kissing him again, "That means we can start tonight early."

Zuko could only laugh as she pulled him to his feet and dragged him to their sleeping quarters.


End file.
